These are a few of my own shots from the Jupiter and Saturn conjunction of December 2020. On December 21, the night of closest pass, from my back yard I could just get enough light to snag the saguaro cactus in the lower left corner of the image. Then, all the way to the upper right, you can see brighter Jupiter slides just to the left of of a fainter Saturn.
I was able to zoom in enough to catch Saturn's rings, but the difference in brightness of the two planets made it very difficult to catch them both in the same shot. I ended up with either Jupiter being over-exposed (lower of the inset images), or Saturn was nearly invisible, being severely under-exposed (upper of the two inset images). Still, this demonstrated to me the challenges that astro-imagers face.
Picture of the Month:
Here's a small gallery of interesting pictures. They're not all taken through a telescope, and some are just long exposure images taken while mounted on a camera tripod, or even a cellphone shot. Processing was kept to a minimum, so that just about anyone can get similar results. Click on any image to get a slightly better view.
If you'd like any of your images included in our gallery, just send them along with your permission to use them. We'll update the gallery from time-to-time, and there is no set period until the next batch will be posted. Hover over the shots, to get a little info about each picture. Have fun!
Image Gallery:
The 2020 Conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades from my back yard!
The "star" of FLV at the June 2019 event was not Chuck! In the far upper right is Jupiter - the reason for this AAAZ adventure!
The Rosette Nebula is often mis-labeled as a planetary nebula, the final expansion of a dead star. In fact, this is a stellar nursery. Note the new baby star cluster in the core!
The 2020 Conjunction of Venus and the Pleiades from my back yard!